


Athena's Statue

by tabrisin



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 03:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13561809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabrisin/pseuds/tabrisin
Summary: Divine Victoria visits the statue built to honor the hero of the Fifth Blight in Denerim, and is reminded of how poorly it depicts her former lover.





	Athena's Statue

The statue did not look like her.

Leliana had written to Alistair when it was first built to notify him of this, but she had received a letter full of somber frustration uncharacteristic of her dear friend. The burdens of the crown, she supposed.

Now, here she was a decade later, with her own regal burden to bear, staring at the same damned statue. And still, she could not see the Warden in its stone visage.

… _her_  Warden.

She was amazed that the most talented artists in Thedas had gotten the memorial so wrong.  
For starters, they had removed all “blemishes” from her face; her freckles splattered across her face, ‘all from her mother,’ she had said, and the scars that etched stories into the skin of Athena Tabris.

Leliana remembered being told those stories. The scar from her lip had been received in a childhood scuffle, that ended with Athena’s face in the dirt. Leliana had teased her for that.  
The one across her nose was earned during the massacre at Ostagar. Athena had gotten quiet when she told that tale, and she would not give up details.

Secondly, the statue depicted Athena with her hair neatly combed and parted. In truth, Athena’s hair was in a state of permanent bedhead, and it was constantly getting in her eyes. So much so that Zevran used to joke that the darkspawn would one day figure out her blind spot and use it to their advantage.  
The statue also neglected to show the braid that Leliana had so carefully placed in her lover’s hair, on a rare, peaceful morning in the camp. 

The monument’s expression was one of emotionless serenity, despite the fact that Athena’s bright smile had been the one shining beacon in the darkness of Ferelden during the Blight. Her flashy grin had sparked hope in the hearts of everyone she touched, and had caused Leliana to fall fast for the Warden.

The worst mistake lay in the ears. A seemingly meaningless detail, but not when Ferelden’s hero had hailed from Denerim’s own alienage.  
They were too short, almost hidden by the hair. After all she had done for them, Ferelden still attempted to hide the simple fact that Athena was an elf. 

“Your Holiness?” a Chantry sister called delicately to Leliana. “I do not mean to interrupt, but you may not want to be late to your meeting with King Alistair.”

Leliana nodded curtly to the sister. She stole one last glance back at the statue of her Warden.  
And Divine Victoria sighed, filled with the dying hope for different life to have lived.


End file.
